Let’s look at project management software for Mac computers that has all the features you need to deliver project success. We’ll also explore Microsoft Project alternatives for Mac and how you can get around that overly complicated and rigid project management tool if you have people in your organization that are stuck with it.
Best Project Management Software for a Mac
ClickUp
Best for unlimited users/seats
ClickUp is a project management software tool with powerful features for managing and completing all your team’s projects in one platform. Users can plan projects, schedule tasks, and manage resources in a centralized workspace, as well as communicate and collaborate with team members and guests.
Task management features include task checklists, subtasks, and task templates, as well as the ability to filter, sort, search for, easily reorder, and view tasks in the manner most convenient for the team. Users can also create Gantt charts, calendars, and timelines to visualize tasks.
ClickUp also includes features for creating, sharing, and collaborative editing for Wikis and documents. Users can comment on documents and tasks, assign comments, and chat with other team members for increased communication and collaboration. Reporting features include the ability to create custom dashboards, as well as six built-in report types for team reporting.
ClickUp offers native integrations with Slack, G Suite, Dropbox, and many more tools, as well as over 1,000+ integrations through Zapier.
ClickUp’s free plan is robust and includes all primary features. The unlimited plan starts at $5/user/month and offers additional functionality.
Monday.com
monday.com sits atop our list of the top 15 best project management software for Mac. The solution is a popular project management software, owing to its clean dashboard, where you can monitor all team activities and tasks.
Project management software monday.com is ideal for large teams where tracking tasks and identifying the accountability of each member can become complex. A cross-functional team, for example, needs visibility over what other departments are doing that may impact its deliverables. That said monday.com’s single board keeps everyone in the loop. monday.com free trial allows you to get to know the features firsthand at no cost and without commitment.
You can add tasks, projects, goals, and to-dos on a single board. Then add task owners and track their progress from the same location. The intuitiveness of this single-dashboard design helps you plan your workload and spot potential bottlenecks. Plus, it has all the key features of a creative project management software.
A small team, on the other hand, will find the solution ideal for inviting third-party users like clients and stakeholders. A board can be shared and permission set for external users.
Just a note, though, if you’re using the Mac app, you may be losing out on real-time accessibility over the internet, which deters remote team collaboration. It’s still best to use a cloud-hosted plan, which works just as fine with Safari anyway.
Teamwork
With this tool, you’re creating workflows, and you’re doing it in a way that’s simple for people to understand and get a handle on. You can create different projects, milestones, and tasks and even use it on any of your devices. This system works on iOS, Android, Google Chrome, and Web. That means any of your users and team members can access it no matter where they are or what type of device they use. And you can check in to see just what they’re doing through the snapshot view.
You get to assign high, low, and medium priority to tasks, see how your team is doing and even set up the start dates and due dates for everything. You’ll also be able to use Gantt style timelines to keep an eye on everything. And you can try out the whole thing for free for 30 days. Then you pay based on the number of people who are on your team.
Teamwork Features:
- Workload
- Templates
- Collaboration
- Board View
- Time Tracking
- Milestones
Best Construction Project Management Software for Mac
1. monday.com
monday.com sits atop our list of the top 15 best project management software for Mac. The solution is a popular project management software, owing to its clean dashboard, where you can monitor all team activities and tasks.
Project management software monday.com is ideal for large teams where tracking tasks and identifying the accountability of each member can become complex. A cross-functional team, for example, needs visibility over what other departments are doing that may impact its deliverables. That said monday.com’s single board keeps everyone in the loop. monday.com free trial allows you to get to know the features firsthand at no cost and without commitment.
You can add tasks, projects, goals, and to-dos on a single board. Then add task owners and track their progress from the same location. The intuitiveness of this single-dashboard design helps you plan your workload and spot potential bottlenecks. Plus, it has all the key features of a creative project management software.
A small team, on the other hand, will find the solution ideal for inviting third-party users like clients and stakeholders. A board can be shared and permission set for external users.
Just a note, though, if you’re using the Mac app, you may be losing out on real-time accessibility over the internet, which deters remote team collaboration. It’s still best to use a cloud-hosted plan, which works just as fine with Safari anyway.
monday.com Pricing: monday.com starts at $8/seat/month, which includes unlimited boards, unlimited docs, and access to the platform’s native iOS and Android apps. The platform also offers a free Individual plan for teams of two.
2. Wrike
Did you know that Wrike project management software, a popular cloud-hosted project management solution, is available as a desktop app? Cloud solutions have plenty of benefits, foremost of which is accessibility and flexibility. Still, if you feel more comfortable with a desktop platform, or want to break free of the browser, you can still enjoy this software.
The installed version works for Mac OS Mavericks (version 10.9 or later) and Windows 7 and up. It has several practical tools for desktop dynamics, including creating quick links to tasks and enabling multiple tabs in the app. The vendor regularly updates the desktop app; hence, it’s recommended to set for auto-updates (you can disable this). The Mac app is free. Be sure to check the Wrike free trial if you want to investigate the features closely.
The Mac app has all the essentials of cloud-hosted Wrike: 3-Pane visibility, multiple workflows and methodologies, cross-industry uses, scalable features, and intuitive navigation.
As with the cloud platform, the app helps you break goals into manageable tasks using various project management tools like Gantt Chart, Kanban boards, and waterfall schematics. It also integrates key features that many project management software leave out, such as time tracking, resource management, and document versioning.
Wrike Pricing: The starting price for Wrike is $9.80 per user/month, which includes full project planning and collaboration. A freemium is also available for five users, but it only covers task listing
3. ConnectWise Manage
Aside from being a web-based solution, ConnectWise Manage supports various operating systems and devices, including Mac OS. ConnectWise Manage comes with robust project management features, such as project templates, which help eliminate repetitive tasks when creating new projects.
ConnectWise Manage offers highly customizable work plans that you can adjust in real time to accommodate the necessary changes as you accomplish tasks or projects. You also have a 360-degree view of your ongoing projects and other activities to ensure that all tasks and goals are accomplished within the given timeframe and budget.
Try out ConnectWise Manage with their free trialVISIT WEBSITEFREE TRIAL
Beyond project management, ConnecWise Manage offers a suite of other business solutions, such as sales and billing, account management, procurement, procurement, marketing, and customer service.
ConnectWise Manage Pricing: Pricing is by quote, which helps businesses get a package plan specifically tailored to their needs.
4. Smartsheet
Smartsheet is fully functional on Mac via browser, but it lacks a desktop app. This isn’t a bad thing, as we’ve pointed out above, as the goal is to ensure your project management software works on your MacBook or iMac.
Smartsheet details take after the familiar Excel spreadsheet interface. The idea is to wean users from cumbersome spreadsheets and let them experience the more powerful features of a cloud-hosted solution. The vendor offers a comprehensive free trial to get you up to speed with the features.
If you’re happy working with spreadsheets yet want more features, Smartsheet can be that bridge. It offers multiple views, such as Gantt Charts, team availability, calendar, card view, and timelines. Likewise, it allows in-depth automation beyond a spreadsheet’s capability, namely, set alerts, email reminders, and process web forms. Arguably, Smartsheet is more complex than most cloud project management dashboards, but if you’re familiar with spreadsheets, this is a non-issue. Besides, the solution has plenty of templates for a variety of project types.
Smartsheet Pricing: Smartsheet starts at $14 per user/month for individual users. The package includes 10 sheets, reports, multiple views, and forms. An enterprise version is available by quote.
5. Zoho Projects
Zoho Projects is one of the most popular project management applications in the world. It is highly-customizable, making it widely used in a variety of business functions across various industries. Zoho Projects enterprise users range from professional costumers and software developers to business and construction consultancies.
Key product features include collaboration tools like kanban boards, forums, discussions, group chats, commenting, and file sharing. Other features include budgeting, time logging, expense tracking, and a user management module. With these tools, users can streamline how their projects go. Moreover, you can customize these tools according to your needs and preferences. For these reasons, Zoho Projects has been a staple for many enterprise users.
ProjectManager is a powerful, online project management software for Mac computers or Apple devices. ProjectManager provides streamlined management tools that drive project success on your Mac.
Yes, get powerful online Gantt charts, simple task lists, real-time dashboards, resource planning tools and collaboration features all in one, easy-to-use tool. ProjectManager works great for agile and waterfall projects. If your current project management software isn’t cutting it, then give ProjectManager a try.
Key Features to Look for in a Project Management Software for Mac
If you’re looking for project management software for Mac, you’ll want to make sure it has these features. They’re all essential for planning, executing and monitoring the progress of your project. You’ll also want cloud-based software that has real-time data for more insightful decision-making and which fosters better collaboration with your teams, no matter where they are, how they work or what their role is.
Gantt Charts
The Gantt chart is a planning tool that creates a visual timeline of the entire project. It is made up of two parts. On the left side is a spreadsheet that lists the tasks, duration, start and end dates, associated resources and costs. On the right side is the project schedule is illustrated, translated the right side into a bar graph. Gantt charts are used in all different project management methodologies, but especially more traditional, planning-ahead methods, such as waterfall.
Kanban Boards
The kanban board is another project management tool, this one is designed to visualize the workflow of a team as they move through a production cycle. It is made up of columns that represent the stages of a production cycle. At it’s most basic, kanban columns will be titled to do, doing and done, though there can be as many column headings as needed for the project. Beneath these columns are kanban cards, which are individual tasks. The kanban card will have a description of the work to be done, priority, due date, who is assigned and more. As work is done, the kanban cards move from column to column until complete, allowing for transparency in the process.
Calendar View
The calendar view is often nothing more than a calendar. It collects important dates and can be used to see what is due when at a glance. It’s another way to see your tasks and get a daily, weekly or monthly context of the work you have to do. There are some calendars that are more robust and are seamlessly integrated into the larger project management software. These calendars have features that can do more than just change dates but add descriptions, assign team members and more.
Project Dashboards
The project dashboard is a tool to monitor and track progress and performance. It consists of charts and graphs that collect data and show how your project is doing across metrics such as time, cost, workload and more. Some software requires you to set up your dashboard and even input the data, which it then displays. Other software will have the dashboard set up and fully functional, automatically gathering information and calculating the results.
Team Collaboration
Team collaboration is fostered by software features such as chat and file-sharing functions. It is used to connect managers and team members no matter where or when they are working. For team collaboration to work it must be accessible over a cross-section of project tools, and serve hybrid teams that might not work in the office and any job type, such as those who are not as tech-savvy as the project management team.
Task Automation
Task automation is when software streamlines business processes, reducing busywork and giving team members more time to focus on their tasks. Triggers can be applied that set into action simple tasks or a series of more complicated tasks. The purpose of this is to add efficiency and boost the productivity of the team member.
All of these features are important to managing and executing a project. If you’re working on a Mac and software such as MS Project doesn’t work on your platform then nothing gets done. While not everyone works on a Mac, most organizations have people who work on both. They all need to be able to do their jobs. This is something Microsoft fails to understand.
When MS Project Doesn’t Work on a Mac…
Most project managers have endured Microsoft Project. For years, it was an industry-standard tool, even though it was (and is) difficult to use. Whether using MS Project for desktop, MS Project Server, or MS Project Online, the problems of the tools are legendary.
The calculations are confusing and overly complex. Sharing files requires add-on tools like Sharepoint. It’s non-collaborative, meaning only PM Pros can use it. And it’s costly. You’ll need a monthly subscription for each user. There are three plans to choose from $10, $30 or $55 a month. For Mac users, MS Project is a non-starter. It simply doesn’t work, leaving many looking for an alternative solution. Luckily, there’s ProjectManager.
Choosing the best project management software for your team is an important decision. ProjectManager is a powerful alternative to MSP. Our award-winning software is fully online (unlike MS Project), and is available at a price point that is actually affordable for teams.
Mac users also love the easy-to-use interface and collaboration tools that allow teams anywhere in the world to work together. Plus, our iOS app for mobile phones and tablets supports on-site visits with clients, field updates, or even working on your tasks in your pajamas.
Cloud-based Software for Mac
ProjectManager is a cloud-based project management software that exists entirely online. Manage your projects on any computer with any web browser, including Safari. As long as you have access to an internet connection, you have access to your projects.
You can store all of your files in the cloud with our online file storage, so you can download, upload or view project files whenever you need to. You’ll never have to drag your work computer to the coffee shop again!
Get Multiple Project Views
Not everyone in an organization works the same, but they have to work together. That’s why we have multiple project views so every department can collaborate, whether they’re on a PC or a Mac. People who plan ahead and work in a more linear fashion can use the Gantt chart or sheet view. Their schedules are updated on the task list, calendar and kanban view.
Kanban boards are perfect for your agile teams, who are more self-directed. Everyone is working from a single source of truth without having to use tools they’re uncomfortable with.
Automate Workflows and Tasks Approvals
Neither PC nor Mac users want to get bogged down with busywork. Our custom workflows keep teams free to work on what matters. You can add as many triggers as you like then set off actions to streamline simple tasks and add greater efficiency. Watch our task automation features boost your team’s productivity. Managers can still control the status of work with task approvals.
Easy Integration with Your Favorite Apps
ProjectManager also integrates simply with other Mac apps you use every day. Our Zapier integration allows seamless data syncs with apps like Evernote, Trello and iOS chat. In fact, you can integrate with over 400+ business applications like SalesForce, Excel, QuickBooks and more! No need to abandon the tools that are critical to your workflow.
ProjectManager also fully integrates with Microsoft Project, so you can import any Microsoft Project (.mpp or .xml) file, make your edits, then export it again without losing any data. It’s never been easier to integrate project data between programs.
Simple to Use
Our complete project management platform gives Mac users everything they need to plan, schedule, track and collaborate on projects from start to finish. Create task lists, build project plans, schedule teams, and report on your project progress — all from your mac.
construction management software
1 ClickUp
Best for unlimited users/seats
ClickUp is a project management software tool with powerful features for managing and completing all your team’s projects in one platform. Users can plan projects, schedule tasks, and manage resources in a centralized workspace, as well as communicate and collaborate with team members and guests.
Task management features include task checklists, subtasks, and task templates, as well as the ability to filter, sort, search for, easily reorder, and view tasks in the manner most convenient for the team. Users can also create Gantt charts, calendars, and timelines to visualize tasks.
ClickUp also includes features for creating, sharing, and collaborative editing for Wikis and documents. Users can comment on documents and tasks, assign comments, and chat with other team members for increased communication and collaboration. Reporting features include the ability to create custom dashboards, as well as six built-in report types for team reporting.
ClickUp offers native integrations with Slack, G Suite, Dropbox, and many more tools, as well as over 1,000+ integrations through Zapier.
ClickUp’s free plan is robust and includes all primary features. The unlimited plan starts at $5/user/month and offers additional functionality.
Free forever with paid plans starting at $5/user/month
PROS
- Free forever plan allows unlimited members
- Unlimited file storage on all paid account tiers
- Can email (set-up) a task directly from Outlook
CONS
- Read-only guest permissions are limited to paid account
- Reporting suite is limited to paid plans only
- Granular customization options results in a time consuming set-up
2 Smartsheet
Best for flexibility & customizability
Smartsheet is a spreadsheet-like project management tool. It has won a few awards for quickly becoming a favorite business app. It’s a nice project management software if you’re comfortable working in Excel but wants a break from complicated formulas—Smartsheet performs all the calculations for you across multiple sheets. You can also add customized brand logos and set color themes for individual projects.
Smartsheet has useful project management features such as workflow automation and visualization of tasks in Gantt, calendar and card views. Team members get notified of critical changes in real-time, and the tool provides shared views, detail history, activity logs, automated alerts, reminders, and status reports to keep everyone aligned and informed. The Critical Path feature highlights all the tasks which directly impact your project completion date to keep an eye on important milestones. Reporting is a strong feature of this tool, with editable summary reports that you can easily export to Excel.
Smartsheet integrations include Microsoft and Google apps, as well as development essentials like Jira, and useful business apps like Salesforce, ServiceNow, Slack, Box, and Tableau. The platform is extensible through a REST API and webhooks.
Smartsheet costs from $7/user/month, with a minimum of 3 users and a maximum of 25 users. They also offer a 30-day free trial.
30 days free trial
From $7/user/month
PROS
- Sheet-to-sheet linking
- Many project templates & resources
- Ease of sharing
- Easily customizable dashboards
CONS
- Jira, Salesforce, Dynamics connector limited to Premier plan
- Changes don’t update in real-time
- Can’t customize chart colors
3 Kintone
Best for building custom project workflows
Kintone is a customizable project tracking software platform used by teams at Volvo Trucks North America, Japan Airlines, Shiseido, and over 23,000 organizations worldwide. Their unique approach to project and task management lets you build a wide variety of customizable “apps” either from scratch, using templates or from your existing spreadsheets, for data management, business processes, and workflows. Kintone apps can be customized for project management, sales CRM, customer databases, expense reports, shared to-do lists, equipment management, product feedback, and much more.
Kintone lets you build no-code project tracking apps by dragging and dropping elements that you want to see onto the page: rich text fields, date fields, drop-down menus, number fields with built-in calculations, spaces for attachments, user or group selection menus, related data from other apps, tables, and more.
Once you’ve built the app you want, you can use it to more easily manage whatever data and tasks you and your team need to track. And with custom notifications and reminders as well as detailed permissions settings, your project tracking solution can look and work however you want it to.
What makes Kintone particularly great for project tracking are the features to filter and prioritize tasks by data field or team member to generate custom reports or dashboard views, as well as the ability to automate reminders and handoffs between team members for multi-step workflows.
Kintone’s built-in communication features also allow teams to discuss projects directly in the app and in topic or project-based threads. Dedicated “spaces” organize everything your team needs for your project, including task-tracking apps and searchable conversation threads.
There are so many ways to customize Kintone it can be hard to know where to start. Read the starter blog “What Can You Build with Kintone?” or watch Creating an App from Scratch for a quick look at how the drag-and-drop builder works.
Kintone lets you expand its capabilities with both free native plugins built by the Kintone team as well as integrations with other tools like Slack, Gmail, Google Calendar, Outlook, Tableau, Dropbox, Salesforce, HubSpot, Eventbrite, WordPress, QuickBooks, MailChimp, and many more through a paid plan with Zapier or via API integrations.
Kintone costs $24/user/month with a minimum requirement of 5 users. They offer a 30-day free trial (no credit card required) and discounted prices for nonprofits and educators. Kintone’s team also offers a free custom app build as part of the free trial process.
30 days free trial
From $24/user/month
PROS
- Flexible pricing that includes special deals for schools and NPOs
- Admin accounts have access to tons of customization tools
- Data is easy to pull and manipulate into good looking reports
CONS
- No single-user plan available (minimum 5 users)
- Limited to 5GB/user storage on every pricing tier
- No native templates for common project types or documents
4 Forecast.app
Best AI-native project planning tool
Forecast is an all-in-one platform for resource and project management, used in 40+ countries worldwide, by agency, software, and consulting companies. It’s equipped with tools to manage everything from quote to invoice, plus it offers intelligent automation to predict project delivery dates, forecast capacity needs, and become more efficient. Their AI uses cumulative learnings from hundreds of thousands of projects and creates rules based on that user data.
Let’s talk about features. The Auto-Schedule feature is great for project scheduling, providing estimates, automatically assigning resources to tasks. It’s got a drag-and-drop module that lets you adjust plans and resources in an instant. Another cool feature is that the tool automatically builds a budget for every project with key financial metrics to track planned vs. actuals. It also supports various billing types (fixed price, time & materials) side-by-side and in real-time. It has advanced up-to-the-minute reports you can customize.
Forecast also introduced a one-of-its-kind feature to manage projects in a retainer setup. A dashboard with retainer periods and totals lets you track the financials of ongoing projects without losing sight of staff workloads and time spent on delivery.
Forecast integrations include several turnkey integrations with mainstream project management tools and two-way sync with Jira on the market. It also complements accounting systems like Quickbooks and Xero with PM capabilities.
Forecast costs from $31.76/user/month (€27/user/month) with a 10-seat minimum requirement. They offer a 14-day free trial.
14 days free trial
From $31.76/user/month
PROS
- Predictive tasks for spreadsheets
- Can manage resources across multiple projects
- Easy to plan projects and timelines
CONS
- Milestone data is lumped together rather than separated
- Additional fee for onboarding/training
- Higher learning curve
5 GanttPro
Best project management tool for planning and scheduling projects with an online Gantt chart
GanttPRO is a project management software based on Gantt charts and useful for managing all kinds of projects and teams from different spheres. It stands out for its intuitive interface and powerful features.
The software includes features for breaking down projects in an efficient manner into subtasks, sibling tasks, and subprojects, as well as set dependencies and milestones. To get more visibility, users can choose between the Gantt chart, Board views, and task dashboards. GanttPRO also offers handy task management features such as statuses, priorities, duration & estimation, progress, dates and deadlines, assignees, and more.
The Gantt chart maker allows teams to collaborate in real-time using comments, mentions, and attachments. Resource management and workload features for monitoring team members workload and tasks are also included.
You can integrate your projects with Jira, Google Drive, Slack, and other applications. GanttPRO is widely used in software development, construction, healthcare, finances, events, education, and many other spheres.
Basic plans for 1 user start at $7.99/month if billed annually.
14 days free trial
From $7.99/user/month
PROS
- Intuitive interface with a short learning curve
- Multiple and flexible project views
- Professional Gantt chart templates
CONS
- Light on integrations
- Lack of options to create recurring tasks
6 Zoho Projects
Best for unique team collaboration features
Zoho Projects is a project management application that can handle projects of all sizes and levels of complexity. The tool comes with features that imitate social networking sites such as feeds, forums, and discussions and is available on mobile for iOS, Android, and other systems.
For project planning and monitoring, Zoho Projects’ Gantt chart features let you break large projects down into manageable sections and actionable tasks, plan and visualize different tasks and milestones, and create tasks lists to help you plan in better detail. Zoho Projects’ Gantt charts can also be used for resource allocation, so you can visualize your project schedule and the team’s workload. The resource usage table tells you who is available, who is busy, and who is overloaded.
With Zoho Projects, you can define dependencies between tasks and assign them to the right people, schedule events in your calendar, and monitor the percentage of work that’s been completed once the work has begun. Automate routine tasks at regular intervals by setting up a recurring task, and set reminder emails for tasks.
You can also create or download project documents, presentations, and spreadsheets, as well as upload and share files for team collaboration. Record the hours spent on tasks and compare them with what you had originally planned. This can be done manually or with the help of an integrated timer. Entries are automatically recorded in your timesheet, and generating invoices from this information requires only a few clicks.
Being part of the Zoho ecosystem allows you to connect to several of Zoho’s other services such as Zoho Books and Zoho’s finance suite. The new Zoho marketplace allows 3rd party integrations as well, like Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Google Drive, Zapier, Zendesk, and ServiceNow. Integrations via Zapier and Zoho Flow are also supported.
Zoho Projects costs from $5/user/month and offers a 10-day free trial. Zoho Projects also offers a free plan for up to 3 users and 2 projects.
10 days free trial
From $5/user/month and offers a 10-day free trial
PROS
- Unlimited number of projects
- Easy workflow automations
- Robust communication features
- Time-track multiple tasks at once
CONS
- Does not integrate with Quickbooks
- Lacks some reporting features
- Lack of file type export options
Conclusion
If you’re looking for Mac project management software, our picks should do you just fine. There’s something for everybody here, from monday.com’s great all-round effectiveness to Asana’s free plan and nTask’s competitive pricing.
Do you agree, or did we miss an option? Is there a better project management solution out there for Mac that we missed? Do you want to share your experiences with our recommendations? Let us know in the comments below and, as always, thank you for reading.